The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Benguet Provincial Office will conduct the Quarterly Aquaculture Survey (QAqS) and Quarterly Municipal Inland Fisheries Survey (QIMFS) this September 2021.

 

Aquaculture remains an important source offish food amid the depleting marine resources. This sector is often the target beneficiary of programs and policies because it operates under controlled conditions. The QAqS is a quarterly swvey that generates estimates of volume and value of production that covers operations involving all forms of raising and culturing fish and other fishery species in fishpond, fish cages, rice fish culture, small farm reservoirs, and fish pens.

 

The Municipal inland fishery on the other hand, is a survey on volume and price of fish by species, caught by households engaged in inland fishing. It also refers to catching of fish, crustaceans, mollusks and all other aquatic animals and plants in inland water like lakes, rivers, dams, and marshes using simple gears and fishing boats some of which are non-motorized with a capacity of less than three (3) gross tons, or fishing not requiring the use of fishing boats.

 

The general objective of the survey is to come up with volume and value of production for the reference quarter. Specifically, it aims to: generate provincial and regional commercial and municipal fisheries production and value estimates by species; generate provincial and regional aquaculture production and value estimates by aquafarm type/ environment and by species; to generate provincial and regional area and yield estimates by aquafarm type/ environment and by species; and, generate total fisheries production and value estimates by province by sub-sector.

 

Fisheries outputs form part of the estimation for the performance of agriculture and eventually, of the National Accounts for the generation of Gross Value Added (GVA), Gross National Product (GNP) and Gross Regional Domestic Product (GDP). The data sets generated out of this acitivity serve as basis for researchers and policy formulation. Hence, reliable and accurate production data is very essential.

 

Under Section 26 of RA 10625, the information gathered from the respondent will be held strictly confidential and cannot be used for purpose of taxation, investigation or enforcement procedure, nor will be published except in the form of statistical summaries in which no reference to any individual person shall appear.

 

With that, PSA Benguet Officice asks for the cooperation of the barangay officials and respondents for the success of the survey.